How deep do you prefer your pots?

[SuperBonSaiyan]

I'm talking about finished / highly refined bonsai - how deep do you like to go?

I know for junipers and pines, depth is less important, but it still plays into the aesthetics of the composition.

Even with glazed pots (for deciduous trees), do you prefer a certain height?

I've seen some big pots (30cm+) with tiny heights (2-3cm) which I'm assuming aren't very usable except for forest plantings.

However, if I make a 30cm pot with 20cm height, I'd probably lose a lot of the aesthetic appeal... So just keen to get your thoughts, what heights (and other proportionaly dimensions) do you personally like out of the pots you have?

For unglazed, I like a 20-30cm pot with at least a 10cm height (internal). I often find 7-9cm internal heights, but rarely 10. This is even less likely for glazed pots, where I see typically see 20cm pots with 4cm heights.

Obviously cascade pots aren't relevant to this discussion.

[TimS]

Show pot vs every day pot is the crux of what you're running into here.

Most highly refined trees would never be kept year-round in a show pot, they would be in some kind of cheap pots (relative to the 5 and 6 figure value antique pots used for the major shows in Japan) or even in wooden boxes for the vast majority of their lives, only to be slipped into the shallow pots specifically for the few days of the show before being moved back again.

Sounds like the dimensions you are talking about are roughly what i go by for my deciduous stuff even in the 'nice' pots; ie nothing much below 5cm depth, and for the larger trees up maybe the 10-12cm depth range. Health is priority number 1 well ahead of a pretty pot, so i always err on the side of slightly more depth than i perhaps truly need.

I only have the cream Koyo pot i have for sale left that i class as a 'show' pot IE too shallow for everyday use for any of the trees i have in my collection. If someone had a tropical ficus in a humid environment for instance, they could certainly use it as an everyday pot if they so choose.

If i were preparing a deciduous tree for show utilising the Koyo pot i would start with the repot the year before to reduce the roots significantly enough that the show pot is a realistic size for the roots. I speak on maples here where radical root reduction is quite possible over a single repotting rather than more sensitive species. This way once the show rolls around it's maybe a trim of any long roots that have regrown over the preceding months however many that is, but i know the tree will fit in with some small massaging and only needs to be in in for maybe 3 days tops.

Keep in mind too that highly refined trees aren't generally kept in a constant state of refinement, it may be worked on over a period of 12 months or even several years to prepare it to extreme refinement for the show. I have seen videos of Shiji Suzuki's Junipers completely overgrown and basically returning to being shrubs. The cycle of tree health vs design.

[wrcmad]

I'm talking about finished / highly refined bonsai - how deep do you like to go?

I know for junipers and pines, depth is less important, but it still plays into the aesthetics of the composition.

I find it is more important for pines - maintaining a shin is important for health. On say a 30-40cm pot, I like at least 10cm depth to accommodate this.

Even with glazed pots (for deciduous trees), do you prefer a certain height?

I've seen some big pots (30cm+) with tiny heights (2-3cm) which I'm assuming aren't very usable except for forest plantings.

Deciduous don't need a shin, so for a 30-40cm pot, I aim for 6.5cm+. For smaller pots, the minimum I look for is 5cm. This gives a good balance between practicality, and aesthetics. Most of the time shallower pots (2-3cm) have the soil level mounded to compensate for lack of depth anyway.

I don't differentiate between show pots and every day pots - they are one and the same to me. I don't have the time, and I have found you can keep a tree healthy in a shallow pot if your watering and fertilising regime is sound. Putting a tree in a bigger pot for health (especially something like a trident or elm) can undo good ramification with runaway growth and long nodes. The every day pots in Japan well and truly constitute a show pot in most other places in the world, and their trees are healthy.

[tgward]

have never shown any bonsai so safety in my hot dry area is more important than aesthetics - a less 'ideal' ok sized but deeper pot works for me. Have to drive 3 hrs to Adelaide to get anything decent so usually what i have is what gets used. Some rules get broken

[shibui]

Very shallow pots were all the go when I started bonsai. They may look great but dry out too quick in our dry summers and cause heath problems for the trees. I persisted with a large group in a 2 cm deep pot for years before realising the problem. Now that it is in a 4 cm deep pot it grows so much better.
I do have some shallower shohin pots but they live on a gravel tray through summer which alleviates the drying problem.

[Rory]

I don't differentiate between show pots and every day pots - they are one and the same to me. I don't have the time, and I have found you can keep a tree healthy in a shallow pot if your watering and fertilising regime is sound. Putting a tree in a bigger pot for health (especially something like a trident or elm) can undo good ramification with runaway growth and long nodes.

This is gold, I am the same.

There is no way I would be transfering a bonsai from one pot into another pot for a show. It might be the way of masters, but for me its about time management.

Shallow pots can look incredibly beautiful, but you need to be aware of the issues they can present.
The main considerations I find with pot depth is the mix it is in, and the way you maintain the bonsai, depending on the species.

Assuming you are in the refinement stage, then you aren't requiring a massive amount of water to be transported up for the levels of growth you'd need in the heavy development and trunk thickening stages. So, its more about maintaining a balance of foliage vs the time it takes for the mix to dry out.
You would have to have a lot of experience beforehand and know how much water is going to be taken up by the tree, and whether that shallow a pot will support those requirements. Because its no good saying, yeah, that shallow pot will be fine on a 30 degree day....but if its a 40 degree day, and incredibly windy... then it can kill all the foliage or kill the tree if it completely dries out too soon before the next watering.

So you first off have to prepare for the worst case scenario (40 degrees and quite windy). Of course you could say... "but i'll just move them to more shade if thats forecast"... not a good idea. Rarely does one properly prepare for this on time, or perhaps if you're stuck in hospital for some reason, suddenly you can return to a collection of dead bonsai with nice shallow pots.

I get full sun, so many trees I grow wont survive this situation. For those trees, I could grow them in more shallow pots, but they would have to be permanently placed in shaded areas with dapled sun to compensate.
The other issue is that you might have to constantly trim back excess foliage if you know a majorly hot and windy week is approaching.

I have miniature bonsai, that have been fine in 40 degree heat, and they are only about 2-3 cm deep. They sit under the canopy of larger bonsai. But for those bonsai, they have no river sand, and are in a slower draining mix to compensate.

If you have a deeper mix, you need to make sure the bonsai isn't staying damp too long, and if you have a shallow pot, you need to make sure its not drying out too quickly. I find it easy to juggle the requirements by putting in more or less river sand depending on the depth of the pot.

But on the whole, shallow pots aren't as difficult as you would think they might be.... you just need to have them strategically placed so they aren't sitting in strong afternoon sun, and only get full morning sun. But every backyard is different and its just a matter of playing around with the positions if you want to maintain shallow pots. But remember that the line of the sun changes over the course of a year so don't be complacent with one position for the whole year.

[thoglette]

I'm talking about finished / highly refined bonsai - how deep do you like to go?

Maintaining or showing?

Just like Japan, show pots are more extreme than the normal living pots

[Phil Rabl]

I love shallow pots. Keeping the moisture level right can be a challenge - and I have messed up. This grove of J. maples is 20 years old. They have been in this pot for at least 15 years.

[delisea]

For me a tree looks best when the height of the pot is about the width of the lower trunk. I didn't come up with that. Check out a kokufu album it is uncanny how that ratio works.
Horticulturally, as other others have said it depends...
Cheers,